One Day Like This

I spent my birthday this year at Snettisham in Norfolk – the first time I’ve seen the wader spectacle that takes place a few times each year when there’s a particularly high tide. The birds are forced off the shore as the incoming tide covers the mud, and fly over the beach to lagoons behind, where they wait it out until the tide starts to recede again. Conditions were perfect - clear early morning light, sunny and warm, with little breeze...



Little Egrets



...  and by the time we arrived, at around 7.30 am, birds were gathering in their thousands...

Later, closer views of the birds were possible from hides overlooking the lagoons...







Definitely a day to remember.

Portugal Paradise

I spent 15th to 25th September back in Portugal , based again at the wonderful Lagoon Cottage, enjoying ten days of sunshine (temperatures often around 30^o) and lots of birds. It’s not easy to pick out highlights when everyday brought something special, but here goes...

The garden at Lagoon Cottage always has plenty of interesting birds but this time it was exceptional - along with the Sardinian Warblers, Azure-winged Magpies, Little Owls and Waxbills...

... we had juvenile Golden Oriole, Nightingale, Crested Tit, Short-toed Treecreeper, Spotted Flycatcher, Pied Flycatcher...

Whinchat...

and Willow Warbler...

It even produced another lifer for me – a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. On a couple of occasions a pair were seen, but the male bird was particularly reliable, appearing several mornings, always around 7am, on his favourite sunlit tree. His appearances were usually brief but on one of the mornings Carolyn managed to get this photo...

Another creature that regularly appeared in the garden was this beautiful Hummingbird Hawkmoth...



And talking of beautiful creatures, we saw some stunning butterflies, including Swallowtail, Two-tailed Pasha...

and this Plain Tiger at Vilamoura...

Vilamoura is one of our favourite reserves and we were particularly pleased when we went there this time because a team of UK ringers were on site – giving us a chance to see a number of birds ‘in the hand’...



Melodious Warbler



Red-rumped Swallow


And my favourite... a Bluethroat.

Another memorable day was a pelagic out of Fuseta - a three hour boat trip during which we had close up views of Gannets, Great Skuas, Slender-billed Gull, Storm Petrel, Sooty Shearwater, Cory’s Shearwater and, best of all, several Great Shearwaters...

One of the main aims of the holiday was to see some raptor migration, so on three of the days we went to Cabranosa watch point near Sagres.  Standing at the top of this scrub covered hill...

...you have a panoramic view all around and can never be sure what’s going to turn up.  Each day is different. Our tally for the three visits included Booted Eagle [one day we had an estimated total of 250 flying over], Short-toed Eagle, Common Buzzard, Honey Buzzard [including some stunning pale phase birds], Goshawk, Griffon Vulture, Egyptian Vulture, Black Kite, Marsh Harrier, Kestrel and Sparrowhawk.

We had a spectacular view of a Short-toed Eagle away from Cabranosa - when we were driving home one day. It was distant when first spotted, but within minutes it was soaring effortlessly over us. I don’t have the photographic equipment necessary to take photos in that situation, but fortunately Malcolm does, and he has kindly let me use this one. Such an impressive bird...

A taste of things to come

Saturday was our last birding trip in the UK before flying out to Portugal next week for ten days.  Not surprisingly, most of the talk as we travelled to RSPB Titchwell (hoping to see a Buff-breasted Sandpiper that had been there for some time) was about Portugal – the places we’d visit and the birds we might see.  Let’s hope it was auspicious that Titchwell gave us not only the Sandpiper [a lifer for all of us] but also two birds that we commonly see in Portugal – Little Bittern, and this Cattle Egret...

We also spent some time at Cley looking for a reported Citrine Wagtail. The Wagtail was our dip of the day, but there were plenty of birds on Pat’s Pool to keep us happy, including three more Sandpiper species...



Curlew Sandpiper

Green Sandpiper

Common Sandpiper

Seasons change

There was a definite feel of autumn in the air on recent trips to North Norfolk (27 August) and Dungeness (4 September), the latter with friends from Beds Bird Club.

Our first stop in North Norfolk was Warren Woods near Cromer, hoping to catch a glimpse of a Western Bonelli’s Warbler and/or a Greenish Warbler that had been reported there. As we wandered round the woodland looking for them in a very chilly wind, I was glad that I’d remembered to pick up my fleece before leaving. The birds obviously had more sense than we did and stayed tucked away, out of sight. Thankfully the weather improved as we made our way to Cley later. After catching up with a Red-necked Phalarope there, we went a little way down the road to Walsey Hills NOA reserve where, by the time we were standing watching this juvenile Red-backed Shrike hunting along a hedgerow, the midday sun was bright and warm...

At Dungeness last Sunday, a walk round the reserve and hides produced plenty of good birds, notably Great White Egret, Cattle Egret, Whinchats, and Wheatears. The highlight of the day, however, was the afternoon sea watch, with Arctic Skuas, Black Terns, Little Gulls, Gannets, Kittiwakes, Guillemots, Common and Sandwich Terns all seen, plus several Harbour Porpoises. For me, the stars of the show were the Arctic Skuas - harassing Terns carrying food in an attempt to steal themselves a meal. It was thrilling to watch the aerial acrobatics of the two birds trying to out-manoeuvre each other. Occasionally a Tern would give in and disgorge its catch, and in a split second the Skua swooped in to claim its prize - wildlife action at its best.

Quieter moments were spent appreciating this Glaucous Gull on the shingle behind us...

In the summertime

Summer can be a relatively quiet time for birding and indeed July was fairly unproductive for us, but things have picked up with the arrival of August...

I spent the first week of the month in the Scottish highlands with Carolyn, Malcolm and Kate, watching Ospreys, summer plumage Black-throated Divers and Slavonian Grebes on tranquil lochs; Dippers in boulder strewn rivers; and Bottlenose Dolphins leaping out of the sea at Spey Bay. Another highlight was a visit to ‘The Potting Shed’ – without doubt one of the best tea rooms in Britain. Where else can you sit eating the most delicious cake while watching Coal, Blue and Great Tits, Siskins, Chaffinches and Red Squirrels on feeders a metre or two in front of you?

A day after returning from Scotland we were in Lincolnshire for our annual boat trip out of Boston into the Wash aboard the Boston Belle; followed by an afternoon visit to Frampton Marsh where these two young Sand Martins were being enticed out of their nest burrow by the parent birds [click on the photo to zoom in– they are cute].

This may have been one of the last times they were in the nest because very soon after the photo was taken I watched them launch themselves into the big wide world.

And coming more or less up to date, last weekend we visited Suffolk. RSPB Minsmere was fairly quiet, although we were pleased to see a party of five Lesser Whitethroats flitting through some Hawthorns not far from the visitor centre. And this Cape Shelduck was an interesting escapee...

After lunch we went to Sizewell beach with the aim of finding some Little Gulls which had been reported there. They were soon spotted just out to sea, flying around one of the rigs. While there we couldn’t resist a quick look to see if the Sizewell B Black Redstarts were still in residence – and fortunately they were.  I always find it slightly baffling that these birds choose stark industrial sites to raise their young – but they do. Here’s one of the young birds, completely at ease in its playground of barbed wire and stone walls.